


Do or Don't

by orphan_account



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yes or no, do or don't, it's all the same to me. Courier and Boone say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do or Don't

When one engineer saw the courier and the sniper in the shadows of the hall, her back hard against one of the silent turbines and his hand busily working between her legs, he flushed and darted away before he thought he was seen. _  
  
_ When two engineers silently crept along the catwalk to watch Six brace one booted foot hard against the concrete wall for leverage and arch back, daintily undoing a grey-faded Vault suit all the way down and around to reveal more and more midnight skin with every parted tooth of the zip, they held a hand to their mouths and tried not to make a sound. _  
  
_ When the sniper crouched down and ran a hand along her thigh, inspecting the neat little thatch of curls with what looks like curious detachment from all the way up there in their metal eyrie, one engineer let out a silent breath and murmured an almost inaudible  _c'mon_ . _  
  
_ When Six flicked off his beret and sent it to the dirty floor, before the engineers could think  _oh_ and the sniper could say  _the fuck was that for_ , she settled two fingers between her legs, short fast circles and short fast breaths before she stopped, parting her folds open like something from an Old World skin rag. _  
  
_ "Do or don't," she said in a voice still shaped by a childhood with the Deep Wells tribe. Everyone knew that the Legion called her The Woman of the West, NCR called her The Courier, and the Deep Wells refused to speak her name. _  
  
_ She wriggled a little, getting comfortable against the metal spine of the turbine as she calmly stared down the man staring at her, and the engineers staring at everything. "Do or don't," she said again, tongue pink as she licked her lips. "Yes or no, do or don't, all the same to me." She laughed and shifted, pressing shine-slick fingers to the sniper's mouth and made an appreciative noise as he caught her hand, holding her still to lick and suck her fingers clean. _  
  
_ When she said  _do or don't_ a fourth time, the sniper said  _do_ and the engineers whispered  _do_ , and he did. _  
  
_ When the sniper licked and sucked her and panted against her skin and mumbled a name into her cunt that wasn't The Woman of the West or The Courier or the name that the Deep Wells refused to speak, she sighed and clutched his head and looked up – in search of patience or out of pleasure caused by his mumbling fool mouth, no one could tell, least of all Six - and she caught the eyes of two engineers. _  
  
_ When Six discovered her audience, she blinked once, twice, and pressed a finger to her lips. _  
  
_ _Shh._   
  
When she came, hips arching hard against the snipers nose and mouth and fast fingers, the engineers bit their lips and said nothing.   
  
When Six tugged the sniper to his feet and turned away from a cursory kiss, the engineers closed their eyes and willed their breath calm and didn't see her say I _'m not your ghost_ and bare her pretty white teeth at his answering grunt.   
  
When she unbuckled his belt and pulled his cock free and petted and pulled him hard, the engineers turned back.  _Shh_ , she said silently over a broad cotton-covered shoulder, and this time her hand was shaky as the sniper hauled her leg - clad in regulation Vault blue, her boot leaving a sharp slice of turbine hall dust on his shirt - into the crook of his arm, finding his rhythm and fucking her with no love and no affection and all the misspent anger and lust and raw vitality unique to a man ready to die under the hot Mojave sun.   
  
When Six came with her fingers between her legs and a wordless breathed-out moan and a hand digging hard into Boone's shoulder, one engineer pressed the heel of her palm at her sternum and the other at the fly of her coveralls, and the other engineer watched her instead.   
  
When the sniper came with a grunt and a name that wasn't The Woman of the West or The Courier or the name that the Deep Wells refused to speak, he slumped forward and didn't see Six give him a look that was almost - almost - tender before pushing him away, ignoring the sniper's semen glossy on her dark skin as she picked up his red beret and handed it back. She bit back a smile as he zipped himself away and set his beret right, looking at everything but the woman fixing her vault suit into place and the engineers who saw everything.   
  
The engineers saw, and one engineer understood. It was never about love. It was one last moment with the owner of a name that didn't belong to The Woman of the West or The Courier or the name that the Deep Wells refused to speak. Someone else. Someone loved. Someone missed. It was a gift from her to him, regardless if he knew it or not.   
  
Do or don't.   
  
\--   
  
When Boone died the next day, Six stood at his sad little makeshift funeral with the doctor and the trader. Behind them stood the engineers that had been there when a wild swing, a lucky swing of a machete had scored Boone's neck deep enough to paint sun-bleached concrete with arterial spray. It had been messy and quick; his body dragged away from uncaring kicks by an NCR medic who then fell to a bullet himself.   
  
They watched the flames lick around his pyre, tried not to breath in the scored flesh smell, and thought of something nice to say about the man that had been dead long before he died.   
  
_He trusted me with his diary_ , said the doctor.  _I mean, he knew I read it anyway and there wasn't anything interesting in it, but he trusted me enough to look after it while he was out._ He knuckled away a bit of wet that collected at the edge of his glasses.  _Don't give me that look, Cass. I enjoyed Craig's company. I'll miss it._   
  
_He fixed my necklace when I broke it_ , said the trader. She laughed, a sad little hiccup of mirth without much joy behind it.  _When I broke it again he gave it to Raul to fix and even paid for it. Sad fucker didn't even tell me he did that._   
  
_He called me a nice name_ , said Six, and threw a handful of tobacco onto the flames to try and mask the smell of burning meat. She shrugged at Arcade's questioning look and turned back to watch the fire, and in the shadows behind her the engineers looked at each other and wondered who owned the name Carla, knowing they'd never be game to ask.   
  
Do or don't.   
  
_Shh._


End file.
